England's First Colony: State-Building on an Irish Frontier, 1199-1265

Project Description

The spectre of empire still haunts the history of Ireland. Once a mainstay of Anglo-centric narratives of colonisation, historians of the medieval conquest of Ireland now shun the concept in favour of models of decentralised power and authority. This project offers a more balanced perspective, arguing that the period 1199-1265 saw Europe's first developing bureaucratic state take over a military frontier and refashion it on its own lines. Offering the first sustained analysis of newly available evidence for the colonial administration, it explains how private enterprise and royal state-building combined in the thirteenth century to create England’s first colony.